Hoboken Ferry, NYC side

One could call this the NYC gateway to the E-L. Impressive building, and it does personify the railroad on the Manhattan side of things.

Buildings like this were once the sole way of getting to the railroads on the NJ side, bound for west and south.

AND IT WAS A GREAT PLACE TO GO THROUGH TO GET THE BEST RIDE ACROSS THE HUDSON! THE CENTER DOORS LED TO THE WAITING ROOM AND TICKET OFFICE; YOU HAD TO ENTER THERE TO RIDE. SLIDING DOORS LEFOR AND RIGHT BEYOND THE TICKET BOOTHS WERE OPENED WHEN THE BOAT WAS READY FOR BOARDING. VEHICLES LINED UP ON THE OUTSIDE, LEFT OR RIGHT, AT THE DIRECTION OF AN ATTENDENT OR SIGN DESIGNATING NEXT BOAT AND STAYED CLEAR UNTIL THE BOAT WAS UNLOADED. YOU COULD ALSO BOARD THE BOAT'S UPPER DECK THROUGH THE WAITING ROOM. BUT YOU KNEW YOU ARRIVED ON LACKAWANNA PROPERTY THE MOMENT YOU STEPPED THROUGH THE DOOR!

Thanks for sharing the picture. There are several great details, including the REA truck on the right, the pontiac (?) on the left, and the separate Erie and Lackawanna names.

Maybe 1959?


This was at the foot of Barclay (Cortlandt?) street in Manhattan? Just north of the World Trade Center?

E-L? Actually thet was the LACKAWANNA ferry terminal (the Erie was an interloper ).

That's a '58 Chevy Bel-Air...I had one that croaked 3 months before the payments were done...the heartbeat flatlined.

[quote="TR-00"]E-L? Actually thet was the LACKAWANNA ferry terminal (the Erie was an interloper ).
[quote]

That's what made me think it was before the merger. Erie and Lackawanna shacked up for a while before they made their cohabitation legal...

Erie had its own ferry terminals in Manhattan, Brooklyn, etc although I believe only the lower manhattan facility was still open by then.

TR -

My guess was a Chevy Impala.

AIR, the only(?) way to tell the external difference between the models was the # of tail lights on each side....i.e., the Impala had 3 per side and the BelAir had 2 per side, yes ?

Sure beats the New York Waterways "terminal" downtown. Hopefully they will at least get the ferry part of the Hoboken termainal back in service.

When did the ferry service stop and what happened to the building (was it torn down or converted to something else)?


EDITED:

Ignore my questions. I took Irish's advice from another thread and another forum and used Google to get the answers. Found a lot of info and great pictures (including the one Irish posted, which is dated on the site as September 1964) at:

http://www.worldshipny.com/elferry.html

The inside of the ferry sure was impressive. I have never been to the restaurant Binghamptons but maybe I should go.

I rode the last ferry out of there, the last out of the CNJ as well, nice to see the photo again. The middle second story portion with the clock was probably a covered walkway overpass over West Street, removed when the elevated West Side Highway (slightly evident in the photo) was built. The CNJ terminal had an overhead walkway until the highway. The elevated highway was torn down some years ago.

The end of ferry service by the EL was in November of 1967.

The inside of the ferry sure was impressive. I have never been to the restaurant Binghamptons but maybe I should go

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Binghamton's is interesting. I've been to a few functions there, and I believe to the bar and upstairs dining room are open to casual visitors. Much of the original wood and brass has been preserved, and it's delightful inside. Definitely worth a call and stop by for a drink. It's been a while since I had dinner there, though.

The downstairs has a series of banquet rooms in what had been the slightly curved passenger side facing the river. The huge windows have been retained.

Reminds me of the CNJ Ferry Cranford in Brielle, before it was towed out to sea and made part of an artificial reef. Here is an article on it.

http://www.njscuba.com/shipwrecks/cranford.html

There's a site, which I can't link to right now, which has a dozen pix of the interior of Binghamton as a reception hall.

Search binghamton's ferry wedding